Coming To Terms
by Moody-Muse
Summary: Voices, darkness. A look into my mind with the voice of River playing a kind of therapist.


I sit on the couch. Gothika is playing, the house is calm. I hear the washer churning, the snow outside is catching the light is such a way as to throw a reflection that hits the floors and blinds me if I look at it too long.

I stand, stretch my legs and walk to the quiet end of the house, into the bathroom. I leave the lights off and stare into the mirror. Time passes, the image blinks but is the same. The pitter patter of water fills my head as the faucet drips. My father is a plumber and yet our faucet leaks. Ironic. The rhythmic splish-splash-slipsh-splash is too much. I do not rhythm being in my head.

Turning, I come back through the hallway and see River sitting on the couch next to my spot. "This movie is dark. I like it." She looks away from the screen and into my eyes, "You were out for a while, are you okay?"

I nod shakily, eyes moving to my computer. "I like the dark too."

River glances at my computer, the screensaver flitting, blinking and trying to stay active.

"So why are you here alone mei mei? Where's everyone else? I wanted to play shadows and dance for them."

I smile slightly and twirl at the word dance, finding my way to the couch and plopping down next to her. I let my eyes watch the screen as Miranda Grey flies about her cell.

"Father is at work. Mother picked up brother, they went up North to get the car fixed. Sister moved out, over a year now. I'm here alone."

River blinks slowly and tilts her head, processing. She did not ask for the details but I want them to be known. "You're never here alone." She speaks slowly, as if guessing that this is the proper response to give.

"I know." I look at my computer and slowly hit the spacebar, let the blank document pull up and then I start hitting the keys that my hands are guided to. "They don't trust me here alone. Someone can hurt me. A stranger, a friend. I can hurt myself."

River scoots father into the couch and frowns, "What's wrong?"

I smile and continue to type, an idea for a story floating in my head and I pull up another document-the other is reserved. "Do you ever think of suicide? Not so as to die and escape, but to die and find out what's on the other side?"

River leans over the little separator in the couch and lays her hand on my shoulder. "Why are you thinking about suicide?"

I giggle, "Do you want some tea?"

River glares slightly, "Don't sidestep the question."

I stand and pour her a cup of tea, I think through my words carefully. "I've died so many times. As a baby, as a child, a few years ago," I pause and smile sadly, "there was never any warmth or light. There was no trials, no pain or joy. I just sunk into nothingness, nothingness that felt like years. And then the doctors were there hurting me, drugging me and pulling me back to this, to life."

River sips her tea and listens, eyes fixed on me. I shiver and meet her gaze, "I dream that, almost every night. I close my eyes and the nothingness is back except now it's not years and years that I am there, it is so quick and I miss it when I wake. I used to stay up as long as I could, only sleep when I needed to and never anymore than minimum. Because I didn't like the nothingness. But now," my words are getting harder to say, I don't want to say the truth out loud.

"What?" River prompts.

"But now, it's all I can do to stay awake. Some nights I come home from school and I sleep until woken, then I'm up for an hour and I sleep for the rest of the night. I spend weekends in bed sometimes. All that I dream lately is the nothingness. Sometimes a real dream comes, but on those nights I can't stay asleep, I toss and turn until I dream of nothing."

River has tears in her eyes and I realize a few tears are on my cheeks. I wipe them away and stand, looking at anything but River because of my shame.

"Do you tell anyone about this?"

I shake my head, "Just you."

"I'm not real."

I wince, "I know!" I shout the words. A flash of anger hits and I pace, hands working frantically through the air. "You're not real, the others aren't real. Just voices in my head, talking and whispering and I give you faces and names and I can see you sitting there but no one else can and I can feel you and hear you but you aren't real! I have to get you out of my head so I write the words that I hear and sometimes it's stories but sometimes it's just voices and they have to get out of my fucking head!"

River stands and raises her hands to show she is safe, she walks toward me, "Why don't you tell your mother you wish to talk with a doctor?"

I scoff, "I'm not crazy! I just…I'm just not right, okay? I don't need a doctor to fix me, I fix myself."

River shakes her head, "You need help."

"I am the only help I'll ever get. I don't want to tell a stranger anything about me. I don't want anyone I know to find out anything about me like this. I tell myself, that's enough."

River bites her lip, "Did you summon me up to talk to me?"

I blink and try to remember why I called to her. "I don't think so." I speak slowly and walk back to the couch, sitting down carefully.

"I think I know." I say the words after an hour of silence. River glances at me and nods encouragingly.

"I want you to tell the others that I'll speak to them when I can. I have school and all to deal with. I want to spend more time with my family and my boyfriend and everything. I can't concentrate on updating the stories and I can't focus on one thing for too long."

River nods slowly and asks her next question with a quiet voice, "How's the health?"

I look away and glare at my hands. "Fine. I was sick a while ago, I'm better now."

River sighs and walks to refill our tea. "You talked to me. And to some of the others. I was there from about a week in to the last night. What happened?"

I look her in the eye and shrug, "I don't know. I got sick. If I knew what it was or why I was sick then I would have gotten better sooner."

River shifts uncomfortably, "You were sick yesterday."

I glare, "That was different."

"No! You made yourself sick yesterday!"

I bring my knees to my chest and nod, "My stomach was hurting, I had to make myself better."

River lays a hand to my back, in the back of my mind a voice says it isn't really there. "You're walking a dangerous path mei mei."

I smile and take her other hand, "I know. I'm all about danger, can't escape it. I'll be fine. I just…I'll write when I can, okay? I'm not deserting you guys, or the readers, I'm not trying to neglect you. I just…I can't focus on writing on thing and I can't constantly remember to post or respond to everyone or…I just can't handle the order of it right now. I sit to write and I end up with fifty other documents up, new ideas and more threads for a current story. The voices," I stop and she squeezes my hand, "they won't be quiet until I write what they want to say. I have to piece them together into the story with other voices sometimes, or I have to keep them going because they come back."

River stands and sets her cup on the counter, idly running her finger around the rim. "You just have to remember they aren't real."

I swallow and close my eyes, "I don't want to acknowledge that just yet. If I say that the voices aren't real, that you and the others aren't real then it's just me. And then I'm alone and eventually I'll just sink into the nothingness."

River's voice fills my head, "Let yourself go, come to terms with everything and then all that will be in your head is nothingness." I wince, as she speaks her voice starts to sound like mine.

Regardless, I answer her. "Riv, I don't want to let the voices go. They haven't left me in so long…if they go then I'll be alone and I'll turn into the nothingness. It scares me."

River is gone, all that fills my head are whispers of other voices, the loudest one my own, "The voices, the nothingness, your fears and pain. None of it is real."

I sniffle, "It's all I am. Am I real?"

"You exist. But right now, you're not real. All you are is a mask, a doll. You're a vessel to carry the crazy and dark and nothingness. There's no real girl inside of you, you're just mold that was filled with the things that you are good at."

My eyes snap open and a muffled scream is in my throat. I'm in front of the mirror and tears are on my cheeks. The bathroom is dark and I hear Gothika playing in the living room. Miranda Grey is screaming. But her voice does not cover up the sounds of the dripping faucet. Splish. Splash. Splish. Splash. I hate rhythm in my head. The order and control of it, it drives me crazy.


End file.
